Comfort or Peace?

Knowing which direction God is calling me is often a gut check: where in my gut (literally) do I feel God’s peace? When I find that peace – my stomach settles, my breathing eases, my shoulders relax – I have generally found God’s intention.

The key is to not confuse comfort with peace. Comfort is often about the simpler choice, the default decision. Comfort can place a layer of stability over the restlessness in my gut. I’ve gone both ways, peace and comfort, and I am slowing learning the deep truth of peace.

Among the decisions I have faced was whether to leave my job without further prospects, or to continue what I was doing. The comfortable choice was to continue. I was earning good money, had status, and was the sole income for our young family. Staying, at least until I had my next opportunity arranged, was the sensible and comfortable choice.

But it wasn’t the peaceful one. Underneath the comfort, my gut roiled. The place of peace was to leave, to risk, and to trust God that my peace truly passed my capacity for understanding at the time, and that God walked with me.

My wife and I made the decision together, both feeling the same peace, and it has led our lives in directions we would not have then anticipated. It hasn’t always been simple and it hasn’t always been comfortable, but that is not the promise of God’s peace. Peace is different from comfort. It is not the same as easy.

In many of our churches, I’m concerned we choose comfort. God’s call offers a deep peace, but also challenge and uncertainty. To paraphrase Shakespeare, we choose the comfort of what we know over the prospects of what we don’t. It’s a natural decision, but it may not be the faithful one. Can we pray together to discern the direction that offers God’s deep peace that passes all understanding, even if it makes us afraid? I hope we can, because that is actually where joy and life abound.

Greg